Dutch fitness coach Raymond Verheijen has continued his feud with Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp.
Verheijen regularly uses his Twitter account to question the fitness methods of football managers. He even claimed Real Madrid starlet Martin Odegaard’s career is “going downhill” due to too many training sessions.
The former Wales assistant recently voiced his opinion that Klopp’s training methods “caused 20 hamstring injuries in 10 months”.
They were the sort of comments that you imagine Klopp would just ignore. But he responded last month, claiming Liverpool’s hectic festive schedule would put players at risk and cause “this Dutch guy saying the training is not too good”.
Perhaps using Klopp to raise his own profile, Verheijen replied to Klopp in an interview with Dutch football imagine Voetbal International.
He not only took a shot at the Liverpool boss but at Pep Guardiola and Mauricio Pochettino, too.
“As I’d call it Klopp is a pancake, but it would not make sense because then you make it personal,” Verheijen said, via the Liverpool Echo.
“I do not make baseless opinions about the person, but come with facts and laws about the trainer.
“Klopp is one of the best trainers in the world, but guess what? Klopp, Guardiola, and Pochettino are underdeveloped in terms of periodization.
“Regarding tactics, in play development and analysis of the opponent, they are properly developed. For tactical teachers, training twice a day is very tempting.
“Pochettino sometimes trains three times a day. The time between workouts is shorter.”
According to Verheijen, excessive training sessions contribute to more injuries.
“It’s harder for players to overcome fatigue,” he added. “If fatigue builds up, the signal from the brain to the muscles slows resulting in reduced control over the body. Poorer co-ordination leads to a greater risk of injuries.
“Klopp is generally great, but in that particular aspect, he has little knowledge. Then you can say: ‘Gosh Jurgen, I would do it differently’.
“I use Twitter as a means to educate coaches around the world.
“I use the mistakes of the current generation of trainers to train the next generation of coaches. Twitter is an extension of the courses I teach all over the world.
“That makes my story concrete rather than abstract. The general public does not see that and think Verheijen’s crazy but that’s not important to me. My mission is to train better trainers.”
So, is there any weight to Verheijen’s comments? Well, Liverpool are 11th in the Premier League’s list of currently injured players with four players out, via PhysioRoom; Tottenham (13th) and Manchester City (14th) have four and three injured players respectively.
So, no.
Verheijen might want to question Mike Phelan’s methods. His Hull City team lead the way with eight hurt players.